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35
On such like stuffe still mayst thou feede
That still dost waver as a Reede,
And mak'st me weare with griefe of minde,
The WtZZow-Garland most unkinde.
(Grosart, p. xxiii)
Whereas Laura and Alba present the persona of the Petrarchan lover in the
conventional situation, The Fruits makes no pretense and seems bluntlyautobiographical
.
Although it was written many years before the translation of
Varchi, as the style and language demonstrate, The Fruits of Jealousie
is an appropriate companion-piece to The Blazon. If it is indeed an
autobiographical poem disguised as a lover's lament, it is a fitting
complement to Varchi's philosophical discourse, because in it Tofte
confesses his own folly in the wasting of a real life given over to the
power of jealousy. Varchi's address, on the other hand, describes the
destruction of fictional lives and the demise of literary characters.
In some ways The Fruits attempts in poetry what the annotations to
The Blazon attempt in prose: to communicate Tofte's personal feelings
on a subject of intense personal significance.
It is difficult to say with certainty that the "America" poem
discussed earlier in this Introduction (p. 2) is Tofte's last work.
If he did make a voyage to America, and if the poem is really based on
the experience of a voyage, then this discussion of the canon could be
brought to a more definitive conclusion than seems to be possible. A
curious reference to a sea voyage in The Fruits of Jealousie deepens the
mystery surrounding Tofte's supposed journey to the New World: